INTRODUCTION

As dedicated sim racers, most of us are always in the search of hardware that can help us become more competitive sim racers and also help us in the immersion of our addiction. Simpros has a product that can help you accomplish both! The SR-300 is a complete Racing Simulator with an injection-molded seat and a fully adjustable peripheral mount. This unit comes with Monitor stand and swing away Keyboard tray for extra control of your game. The SR-300 is the top of the line model, but Simpros has lower end models along with a complete line of flight sim simulators.

The one thing I can add after speaking with John from Simpros is that he truly cares about what his customers get out of his products and really wants to know what he can do to improve his products to meet those needs. I know several of the items of feedback I provided had already been addressed! For those of you attending the Florida LikeReal LAN event, you will most likely be able to see a unit in use there.

Before I begin, let me once again add that the product I received was an earlier production model and since then Simpros has made numerous improvements and refinements to the SR-300. John has sent me several updates on improvements to this unit and I'm sure he will continue to address ANY issues any of his customers have. The SR-300 is now also available in several powder coating paint colors for no additional cost. I will say right now John is very determined to provide a high quality unit that satisfies his customer's desires!


THE SEAT

The seat itself is an injection-molded racing seat that comes with a seat cover. Let me start off by saying I'm about 6ft 3in tall and closer to 300lbs than I am 200lbs� so If I can sit in this product and be comfortable, chances are so can you! The seat is actually quite comfortable and provides good back support for those long races. I found you generally do not have the problems with your legs falling asleep like you might find with us unfortunate souls who race at our computer desk with metal poker chairs with little or no cushioning on them. The SR-300 seat provides the feel of a true high performance production seat.


WHEEL TRAY

The Simpros SR-300 comes with a tray in which you mount your wheel upon. Although it was adequate in size for my ACT-LABS Force RS and RS Shifter, I thought it could be a tad wider. Well, as I stated above, John was way ahead of me as a larger wheel tray has already become available. Not only that, he has added pressboard under the plastic tray for even more stability. The wheel mounted very easily to this try, as I suspect most wheels will. The one problem I did notice was with the actual tubing and built in adjustability of the tray. The tray is adjustable as it slides up and slightly towards you or down, and slightly away from you. There is a screw bolt you turn to tighten the tray in place. This works fine to hold the tray in place, but I found the tray had a bit of 'slack' in it and when turning the wheel the tray would move around a bit from the inherence slack in the tube within a tube approach to the adjustability. Problem? Nah.. John has already gone to work on that one too.


PEDALS

The pedals are definitely unique. They work with a lever/wheel unit that actually works in conjunction with your racing wheel's pedal unit. The wheels on the lever on the SR-300 sit on your pedal unit. So you are not actually putting your feet on your pedals any longer, you will be using the pedals on the SR-300 that will connect you to your pedals. Although it sounds somewhat clumsy in theory, it is actually very well done and works very well. John has actually just improved the pedal unit by implementing a gearbox into the throttle for more range of motion. (See picture). If you look at the picture above and at the beginning of this review, you will notice that each pedal for gas and brake is on each side of the center frame rail, thus a dilemma. You will HAVE to learn how to left foot brake which is not necessarily an easy thing to do, even though it would make you a more complete sim racer if you did . I also am not sure if John has any plans of implementing a unit with a clutch pedal included for future sims or use with Grand Prix Legends.


MONITOR TRAY

One thing that caught my attention immediately upon completing the assembly of the SR-300 and sitting down in it was the monitor tray. Even with a 19-inch monitor, the tray sits behind the wheel unit and thus the monitor is too far away. If this is the case with the 19-inch monitor I have, it will most certainly be the case with the smaller monitors. However, I received an email from John and guess what? You guessed it, he has addressed this issue as well and moved the monitor closer to you.


KEYBOARD STAND

The keyboard stand is a great little item that really solves a lot of problems for us sim racers. Many of us have either created home made control boxes or keyboard placement stands so that we have easy access to those function keys while racing. However, these aren't always the most complete solutions and not all of us are comfortable with Game Commander, even though it's a great piece of software. The SR-300 solves this problem by offering a retractable and fully adjustable keyboard tray that makes it extremely easy to keep the keyboard at a convenient location while racing.


ASSEMBLY

Assembling the SR-300 is a piece of cake. It took me literally about 10 minutes to put the entire unit together including mounting the seat, putting on the seat cover, the monitor stand, and keyboard tray. Even though the SR-300 is a well-engineered product, it is not overly complex for the customer to assemble. All you need is a socket set and maybe a good pair of Craftsman Robo-Grip pliers.


OVERALL

The Simpros SR-300 is a complete sim racing chassis that offers a lot of utility for sim racers of all levels. It offers all the quality and usefulness of products that cost three times the SR-300. If you have the room to place the SR-300 and a PC devoted to sim racing, I highly recommend you take a very close look at the SR-300 if you are considering upgrading your arsenal of sim racing equipment. In all actuality, the SR-300 could be used for flight simulations and other gaming as well. Although, SimPros have units designed specifically for the flight simulator market.


PRICE

The Price for the SR-300 is $299.00 plus shipping and handling which is estimated to be $50.00 from coast to coast.